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Lore QA sessions
On this page you will find the various Lore Question and Answers sessions that have been conducted through time. There will be links to the first two Q/A's official origins, and a full transcript of the latest Lore Q/A livestream Q/A Session #1 (Link) Posted at RiftRp on the 14th of March 2011, answered by the Lore-Developer Team anno 2011 Q/A Session #2 (Link) Posted at RiftRp on the 14th of July 2011, answered by the Lore-Developer Team anno 2011 Q/A Session #3 (Link) The transcript below features most of the questions that had to do with lore, needless chatter has been cut out. Thanks to Bekh (Faeblight) for helping with getting the transcript written! The Q/A session was done by Community Admin Elrar (E) and Lore Developer Captaincursor © 'E': Can you run us through the history of Telara as we know it? ''' '''C: “The history of Telara as we know it? It was a...majestic world full of magic and wonder. And then civilizations rose—civilizations flourished. And that attracted the Blood Storm. The Blood Storm entered the world through the Infinity Gate, and they ripped it apart...and there was an age of darkness—such that the people have actually forgotten a lot of what existed before that time! This was the age of dragons when vast empires were ruled by monsters...who were the dragons' lieutenants...and drove the mortals throughout the world. New races evolved, such as the Bahmi, as other-worldly creatures came and intermingled with the mortals of this world. Then, heroes arose. And they fought back against the dragons, and drove them into their various prisons. The dragons then manipulated things throughout the years, but in general: the monsters were driven back, it was an age of heroes, things started to return to normal... Until King Aedraxis fought back against his rebellion and, using the machines, tried to give himself ultimate power, brought Regulos back into the world, opened up the rifts--! Then, once again was an age of monsters until the Ascended return, (the Age of the Ascended!) and fought back against everything, and...now I believe all the dragons are dead.” E: How did the Blood Storm come together? They're such diverse and conflicting personalities...What was the glue that bound them before they came to Telara? C: "The prospect of getting so much more power. Each dragon has different desires: Laethys is Greed and Wealth; Maelforge is Conflict; Crucia is Control; Greenscale is Hunger...The desire for all the sourcestone binds them together." E: They realize their personality differences, and for the “greater good”-- C: Also a bit of fear! I think they all were a bit in fear of Regulos, which is why they turned on him when they felt they had to power to take him down. E: Gotcha, so that's how he got into his weakened state, and thus Crucia's rise was able to take place years after all of the machinations went into motion. E: What's the deal with Shi-Ming? C: Shi-Ming was something that I dropped into a book somewhere to make the world feel bigger. And...immediately, people have started to pull at that thread and...I guess it worked, then? Shi-Ming, I imagine, is the one of the trading partners of Port Scion, they've probably been dealing with all of the rifts, and since we haven't heard from them—maybe they've fallen to them? Or maybe they've just closed the borders to their country and have switched their whole economy to something different as they fought the rifts. Or maybe they completely destroyed the rifts! We don't know—we haven't been there yet. But it is a place across the sea that traded with Port Scion and had a rich culture...Strong empire where we just haven't been to yet. C: It actually came from a fan project I was doing on my Neverwinter Nights server, and I used it for the exact same effect. I dropped it in there and people went “Where is it? We've got to go there! We've gotta go there now!” I'm like, “I don't have the resources to build it! So...” C: It's a dangling thread. 'E: Are we ever going to see something come out of a rift that isn't going to tear our faces off first chance it gets?' C: Now this is half lore, half gameplay. The main reason that you stab things in face is because our game has had a lot of actions and a lot of resources put into stabbing things in the face as effectively and as fun as possible. Ergo, the things that come out of Rift are stuff that you stab and the stories are about fighting things. As we go on, we noticed that it would be more fun sometimes to do other things than just stab...and we've actually been doing some R&D. So...yes! Yes, in fact things will come out of a rift that you will do something other than stab. I believe in the next update. E: Will we find out where Orphiel disappeared to in the future? C: I...keep trying to work things around that. And...it hasn't lined up perfectly. But I really, really want to do a thing where it explains all that. E: There's a mention of Project Omega. Would it have anything to do with that? C: Okay, so here's the thing: the whole Terminus thing was set up by Missdoomcookie (Former lore-developer, red.)—back when she was here—but my impression of the entire Defiant starting area is that it was a timeline that is now invalid and closed off. So Project Omega could be anything—we don't know because that was in a separate timeline where Regulos had won. And he obviously has not won! So, the time that gave birth to the Defiants has closed in on itself and is now gone. So if we do find Project Omega or whatever, it will most likely be in a sliver or something like that. Some kind of alternate reality! '''E: '''Anything else you can share about Orphiel? What's his deal? What's his game? C: Orphiel is complex because to really use him...I think we gotta use him big. And think the reason he may not have been given as much love lately is precisely of the desire to “go big or go home” with him. A lot of the other characters: we can kind of walk on in because they seem responsible and heroic; Orphiel is a bit of a mad scientist. And if he shows up, all we know there's going to be a machine that bends reality inside out. E: So basically, we may or may not want to know what Orphiel is up to. C: Yeah. I think the last time Orphiel really got involved in a project, it created the rifts. E: Can you drop any hints possibly to what fate may come? For what Miela's fate may be. C: I think she's gone. I don't like it in stories where someone gets cursed by a being of unspeakable evil—and then it's just fine. So... E: Rest in peace, Miela and her dignity. C: Her dignity got crushed by Crucia, and we can mourn her—and we can “stab” her later, maybe, when Crucia starts causing more problems—but I don't see her coming back to the throne. Or, if she does, I don't see her in any great state to rule and enjoy things. There's a reason I think that all the lieutenants of Crucia and people who've been Storm-touched and seen her mind wear that kind of mask over their heads. What does the fall of the Ward mean? E: It says that when the gods created the Ward, they became unable to interfere directly interfere with Telara—they had to create the Ascended. But the Ward is gone now, following Crucia's release and her breaking through to Brevane...What does that mean? C: Well, the sayings about what the Gods can or cannot do are always said by mortals. So I would put very little trust into all of that. I think the main reason that the Gods don't perform miracles every day is because they're gods. They're gods of good. I never hear much about deities in the present era performing vast miracles if they're good deities. Generally, the gods that end up interfering are the gods you don't want to interfere in the world. C: Gods of good—if you're Guardian—tend to inspire and get their followers to fight evil-doers on their own, and in a sense they did interfere with the creation of the Guardians. A giant miracle of creating all these demi-gods that run around and solve all the world's problems. They created the Guardians, the Guardians inspired the creation of the Defiant Ascended, and together those two groups have gone out and destroyed the Blood Storm, utterly...Except for Crucia/Queen Miela. E: What's the history between them and the Blood Storm? Was is on Telara, or... C: It was on Telara. The Blood Storm are very powerful adversaries, but they aren't the adversary of the Vigil. But they are not the adversary of the Vigil. There are a powerful group of Dragons from the Planes—who had taken control of most of the Planes at that time—who have challenged the Vigil and the mortals who lived on their planet. E: And thus they created the Ward to protect Telara, it's sourcestone, and its people from the devastating power of the Blood Storm. E: What about Port Scion: its future, its legacy..? C: Port Scion...so, this always difficult. This is a game. And a lot of things sometimes change stories based on production decisions. So, Port Scion as it was built into the world has changed use over the lifespan of the game—not just the story. It is unlikely we will get to see what is behind that wall—other than the Warfront—because what was originally intended for it has been used for other parts of the game that are now canon. And then to re-build something else out of there needs to have an entirety of a story and zones and everything else behind it. So while I could write a book about what it's like, it is unlikely we will go in behind it and live in Port Scion...mainly because of production issues. Which is always terrible to say for story because people want to have every part of the game explorable and every thing mentioned be something they can also experience...But there's all these other gameplay production issues. E: The reality is that a lot of this was created-- C: --for another game! (Previous (5-6 year old) version of Rift, red.) E: Where does magic come from? What does magic consist of? Is it purely planar energy? C: It is planar energy; it is elemental forces bound together through the will and the rituals of the caster. Clerics gain this through communion with some form of non-Telaran power, whether you are a Kelari that binds the spirits together in a manner similar to the druids, or whether you are a Guardian Sentinel that takes the power of multiple deities and fuses them together. E: Are the Dragons actually dead? What happens they are destroyed in Telara? C: I think we started seeing what happens in Update 1.4 when the moats of power started spreading about. They have consumed and absorbed so much planar energy that it's are trying to find another vessel for it. And others can perhaps harness this. So it's not necessarily a good thing to have so much planar power kind of spread out among the planet because there's still a lot of unscrupulous people left. E: The Bahmi: where are the Canyons? What happened there? C: I would love to deal with that, and we have started...and stopped on that a couple of times just because of production. The Bahmi do need some love, totally agree. We just have to find a way to tell that love that makes sense and fits all of the other cadences that we're trying to hit. E: Were the Kelari dark-skinned before or after their exodus for Silverwood? C: I think that there were no High Elves or Kelari until they made the split. And the physical differences happened after that after the High Elves stayed in the forest, and the Kelari on Ember Isle grew to be more like each other. They're Kelari because they left off to Ember Isle and they're High Elves because they stayed in the forests. It wasn't like they were separate before hand, lived together, and then split. C: They were the first race we know of. E: What are the God Engines? What about the one that Crucia built? C: The God Engines were a classification of Empyrean machines that were of such power, that they could perform miracles. The Sun Orb of Pelladane would amplify prayers to gods and spirits, and basically it was like an Ark of the Covenant; it was a radio directly to God and could perform these miracles. The Infinity Gate is the pathway to the planes. It was the means of which the Blood Storm got into the world and perhaps it's the means of walking out of Telara! I don't know yet. We'll see. But will we find other ones? Perhaps. We all certainly like the look of these giant artifacts, so I would not rule that out. C: Crucia is very good about learning about the races she subjugates, and the title of Artifacts is one who's from Pelladane and one who deals with a God Engine. So she basically stole the IT support of the God Engines and brought them to her own “start-up” to make her own God Engines. So they're not something that only has to be made by some long-destroyed civilizations—they can be made again; new ones can be made. But probably the people making the most new ones are villains or Orphiel...who could be either. E: What's the lore behind those huge dragon remains in Shimmersand? C: I think actually it is explained in-game in quests that those are the offspring of Maelforge, and Maelforge is not picky about who he offsprings with, so that was probably some giant Goelmander world servants that he got busy with. I think actually if you do the Dragonslayer Covenant quests out there in Shimmersand, they talk about that a bit. E: Are the Vigil omnipotent or are they just planar beings with immense power comparable to the Blood Storm? Would it be possible for an Ascended to become as powerful as them? C: ...We haven't dealt with this directly. And I don't necessarily want to commit, because sometimes I like the mystery of things often have more power. No one has yet given the Gods stats. E: The Aldwarden in Scarwood reach.. C: I think a is an Elf who is secretly a Greenscale worshipper cursed it back in the day to protect it. That's why there's trolls all around it so it couldn't get knocked down or something. E: Is there any history you can divulge about the Lord's Hall? C: It was a great hall of the Dwarves. Borin actually hailed from there. And as the Dwarves seem to do, when they get something that shouldn't be around or is a problem...they apparently bury it under their city, thinking it'll be safe and no problems will ever happen or go wrong! And to be fair, it probably worked for thousands of years until the rifts came and exacerbated the problem and it got out! E: Do the names of the Eth tribes exist? C: I don't know them all off the top of my head...Every time we deal with it, I have to look them up. We have dealt with them: the tribes are named after their cities. I know one is the city of Charms, which is now the volcano called The Charmer's Caldera. We have Eboni. A lot of them tend to be mentioned in the stories we published about the class names. I think the Chloromancer one mentioned one in there, as well as the other ones that star Eth as the iconic soul. So yes, they do exist—I don't believe we've mentioned them all yet. E: Where are the children? C: There are children in Telara—you just haven't seen them because of all the monsters and stuff. This is not a story choice, this is again a production thing. You have a limited budget for mobs and our artists are great and don't find just shrinking adults down to be acceptable for making a child. But when you put a list of mobs together and you look at your schedule, you end up cutting some of them...and mobs you can't ever fight tend to be the ones you get to cut. That said, I would love to get children as we've all felt the lack of having a child in-game to show that a place is a living world, is an actual family, to put the child in danger so you can rescue it... E: Ascended: are they able to bear children or not? C: I think they are close enough to mortals that they can do things like have children, and perhaps if they're in a huge battle they can get scarred...or not. They are super-powered individuals—as tough or as they were built. So some of them get scarred, some of them do not. I'm sure they're capable of having children, but Telara is a magic world, so I'm sure that they have many canned tricks that prevent that kind of thing. To me, this always smacks into a roleplay conversation...I think that these types of things help make your hero what they are. If a dueling scar down your face is part of your character's backstory, you should be allowed to have it. E: Does Ascension still occur? C: No. Here's the thing that we have to view the world in: geography equals time. When you come out in Freemarch, you are coming out at about the same time...whether or not you're created now or whether or not you're created years ago, because the same events are happening. So you all experience the terror of Jakub and Alsbeth in Freemarch. You all play at the same time. Now, when you meet in the city it gets kind of...wibbly-wobbly...But as you progress in the story, you're all progressing through the same story. So, the Ascended were all created at once. E: The red dome in the center of Epoch Plaza, what is going on with it? C: Canonically, what I think that thing is now, is Sylver had made a defense system against the Planes—against planar invasions—and it can shoot beams of energy up at it. Unfortunately, it uses so much power that it is hooked up to a sourcestone generator deep beneath the city. So it can only fire up, and until something flies over the top of Meridian just in the right place, they can't beam it up. E: Heroes like General Batua, why was he not ascended? He was not a hero yet, he was drunk. At that time he was just hanging around inside The Eternal City, probably wondering why things were going all crazy in the sky. So, he was not a hero yet so the gods did not bring him back, and while the brevanic people are very inventive with the brevanic tech, they did not have the ability to ascend. E: But that is what all of the Loci are about right? It's where the empyreans did attempt to create ascended beings? They were experimenting around, not with ascension, but experimenting and that's what Auram was, an experiment with binding together souls into a construct, an intelligent construct, that could think and could do things. It was the start of that. E: Spin us a yarn about Atrophinious Atrophinious started out as the Battlemaster for Lord Twyl. Now he has found a way to lead his people, so that they can live in peace and fun. Whilst drinking some mead!